Recruiters are the primary users of LinkedIn – they live on
the site all day, every day to source potential candidates.
If you’re not receiving at least a couple of contacts from
recruiters each week, let’s take a look at what the issue might be:
1. Your headline.
The headline is the statement just beneath your name. You
have 220 characters to present your brand to potential employers.
Most of you, however, use the default – your current job
title. DON’T DO THIS.
You want your headline to include your current and/or
aspirational job title, along with the value you will bring to an employer.
2. Your current job
title.
One of the key places recruiters search on LinkedIn is
current job title.
If your job title doesn’t make sense outside of your
company, how can you legitimately massage that title to make sense to the
outside world?
If you are unemployed, please don’t put something like
“Looking for opportunity.” You sound desperate—and no recruiter is going to be
searching for that title.
3. Your connections.
You’ve got to get to at least 500 connections so that others
see you as an active player on LinkedIn.
Also, recruiters will typically look within their existing
connections, and the people those connections are connected to, for potential
candidates. Anybody else is an unknown quantity.
The more people you are connected with, the more 2nd level
connections you’ll have—meaning you are easier for recruiters to find.
4. Your Skills.
This section is key for recruiter searches, so think
carefully about which skills to include in this section.
What will recruiters be searching on to find someone like
you?
You’ll want to audit this section annually, to remove the
skills that no longer serve you and add newly acquired skills.
5. Your picture.
Having a picture on your profile is of paramount importance.
Make sure your picture is a professional headshot—no animals, other people, or distracting background in the picture.